Banter

Dare You To

Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. "Dance with me, Beth."
"No." I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again....
"I dare you..."
If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk's home life, they'd send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom's freedom and her own happiness. That's how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn't want her and going to a school that doesn't understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn't get her, but does....
Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can't tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn't be less interested in him.
But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won't let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all....

I can’t stop reading this series. I can’t. I have finished the first 3 books in the series, and I am moving to book 4 today! It’s so good guys. I am sucked in. Katie grabbed me and pushed me down a hill of amazing characters and great story lines.

I finished Pushing The Limits really feeling like Isaiah and Beth were an OTP. I wanted so badly to see them together, even though I knew deep down inside that the situation they were in wasn’t the best for a healthy relationship. Sometimes as humans I find us really wanting to see the good in something when we know it’s never going to play out. I was a little disappointed in the beginning knowing that this relationship wasn’t going to happen, but after finishing Dare To You, I knew this was for the best.

Dares. Dares can go wrong, or dares can go right. Either way, Ryan and his friends LOVE to take on dares. What started out as a dare in a Taco Bell, turned out to be an amazing reading experience.

We find ourselves diving into Beth’s past about her drug addicted mother, and the man she keeps around who abuses both her and Beth. We saw a sneak peek of him in the first book when Noah and Isaiah found Beth bleeding from an incident that involved him. In the opening of the book, I really wish she had taken the baseball bat to him. My disgust for him only grew at I fell more and more into Beth’s history. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see her feeling like she was responsible for the well-being of her mother. You slowly watch the walls that Beth built up fall when she starts to fall for Ryan. The closer they get, the more open she very slowly becomes. It’s very obvious that Beth has had many unpleasant interactions with men, which means it hard for her to truly open up all at once.

My heart really hurt for Isaiah when Beth told him she loved him, but she wasn’t in love with him. You could feel his pain through the pages, and it was obvious that only one side truly felt the love, while the other felt comfort and security. But nothing further. I left this book wondering if they were ever going to be good friends again.

Ryan stood toe to toe with Isaiah and that says SO much about him. I found myself holding my breath and in that moment I knew he would be perfect for Beth. That moment sold him for me as not only as a character but for her. Isaiah and Noah are always the two people we see standing up for Beth. It didn’t matter if it was the man her father was seeing or some baseball loving guy who followed her out of a taco bell. It was always Isaiah and Noah. The person who was going to stand beside Beth and help built her up needed to be someone who could stand up to those two.

He is proof that coming from a well off, highly regarded home means nothing. Behind closed doors, we see him struggling with his love of Baseball and his passion for writing. He wants nothing more than for his family to stop fighting, and for his brother to come back home. I cried like a baby when he won the writing competition and his brother was in the back clapping for him. It was such a touching moment. Everyone has their demons that people don’t see from a distance. His just happens to be his family interactions when the spotlight is gone.

In the end is when Ryan put his life on the line for her. He protected her in a situation that could have ended with her being dead. If he had not of known what to do and how to react, it could have very well been the end of Beth. This all leads back to seeing him stand up to Isaiah. He’s strong. He never loses. His determination and power are just a few of the reasons he is just as strong as our favorite main guys.

All I want to know is – How do I get a bottle of rainwater, but from Isaiah? Can someone make this happen, please?